Jackson, Mississippi is currently undergoing a revitalization movement in an attempt to revive its blighted downtown core. While physical development is crucial to revival of the downtown landscape, the cultural landscape must also be considered. I hypothesized that developers, business owners, and residents working or living in and around downtown Jackson would report differing desires, positions, and values concerning four elements of sustainable development: cultural, economic, political, and environmental. Ultimately, the hypothesis was refuted according to the quantitative data analysis. However, there were different understandings within the qualitative data where the substance of this research project can be found. These data serve as a “Dialogue of Values” (Blewitt 2008) and an indicator of concerns on which Jacksonians can focus as revitalization continues. This foundation of concerns also establishes a benchmark to measure future inquiries into the inclusion of sustainable development in Jackson’s revitalization.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 356-380). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3018402.

Thesis (M.A.). / Written for the Dept. of Geography. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 27/03/2009). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis concerns a boom in hydropower development in the central Mexican state of Veracruz. There has been a recent resurgence in hydropower globally, re-framed as clean energy and financed by private investors. Along with this, there has been a surge of interest in small hydropower, which is presented as more sustainable than large dams. Focusing on one river basin, the Bobos-Nautla where numerous small/private hydropower projects are currently being contested, I seek to understand how the trajectory of this process is shaped by (re)configurations of actors and institutions at multiple scales, and how this leads to particular places being constructed as sites of development. My theoretical approach draws on environmental governance, political ecology and Science, Technology and Society (STS), to build a framework for answering these questions. In order to contextualize the conflicts that are at the center of this research, I first consider the historical background of dam conflicts, both internationally and with a focus on Mexico. In the latter part, I trace the history of the electric industry in Mexico, its connections with water governance and the way that authority over rivers has been redefined through this process. Turning to the Bobos-Nautla river basin, I begin by following the history of hydropower development in these rivers, showing the numerous parallels between conflicts in the early 20th century and the current moment. I then follow the politics of environmental regulation surrounding the currently contested projects, arguing that defining what counts as protecting nature is a key terrain of struggle. In the final chapter, I look at the contested impacts of development on river flows and springs that supply water to rural communities, contrasting a narrative of untapped abundance espoused by project proponents with a narrative of scarcity and depletion advanced by opponents. Ultimately, I argue that these projects are planned in a way that systematically ignores their potential impacts and sidelines the communities most directly affected by them. But I end on a hopeful note, arguing that the shift to small/private hydropower provides opportunities for a different approach, even if currently the one being followed favors an extractive model of development.

Ecological change very often parallels social change. The concept of the social-ecological system (SES) provides a holistic means of accounting for the dualistic nature of human-environmental interactions by acknowledging that social, political and economic factors influence and are in turn influenced by the processes of ecological change. These transformations can be contextualized within nested adaptive cycles of change that respond to pre-existing conditions and which provide new opportunities for system actors. The adaptive cycle also grants that processes of social and ecological change may be permanent, irreversible and result in new configurations not previously imaginable. The ability for an SES to respond to these processes of change depends upon its resilience which defines the range of reversible change within a stable state. Resilience is determined by a system's vulnerability, by the pre-existing or available capital.Within this dissertation, I assert that resilience is an important factor to consider in studying arid land political ecology. Resilience can be influenced by both institutional and environmental factors. I assert here that institutional factors alone cannot explain the pace of change in a particular political ecology. While institutions constitute the dominant signals with regards to economic decision making, environmental signals may be ultimately more significant. I utilize a detailed case study focused upon a watershed and ejido in northwestern Mexico. This case study demonstrates the influence of strong political and economic signals that influence local economics. Nature bats last and can exert powerful forces over institutional choices. Using this case study, I demonstrate how a dramatic shift in climatic as well as hydrologic regimes leads ultimately to a general degradation of agropastoral ecological resources and their replacement with new, stable but less desirable states. Land-use has subsequently changed. The latter set of ecological changes has become a sort of death of a thousand cuts that has reduced the community's ability to tap local natural capital and thereby generate economic capital. This study is intends to contribute to our knowledge of political ecology by evaluating the concepts of ecological resilience, multiple stable states, and adaptive cycles to the study of these social-ecological systems.

With the retreat of the state under neoliberalism, the lack of (or negligible) government and non-governmental support reasserts grassroots initiatives as a global-change strategy. A feminist political ecology approach and the concept of adverse inclusion were used to facilitate an analysis of social differences shaping local-level adaptive responses. Adaptive responses of small farmers in the border village of San Ignacio, Sonora, Mexico, who are increasingly vulnerable to climate change, water scarcity, and changing labor markets were studied. Gender differences in production sites translate into diverse vulnerabilities and adaptive strategies. Local capacities and initiatives should be a focus of research and policy to avoid viewing women and men as passive in the face of global change. The dynamic strategies of San Ignacio women and men in home gardens and small orchards hold lessons for other regions particularly related to adaptation to climate change via agrobiodiversity, water resource management, and diversified agricultural livelihoods.

This synthesis article joins the authors of the special issue "Gender perspectives in resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to global environmental change" in a common reflective dialogue about the main contributions of their papers. In sum, here we reflect on links between gender and feminist approaches to research in adaptation and resilience in global environmental change (GEC). The main theoretical contributions of this special issue are threefold: emphasizing the relevance of power relations in feminist political ecology, bringing the livelihood and intersectionality approaches into GEC, and linking resilience theories and critical feminist research. Empirical insights on key debates in GEC studies are also highlighted from the nine cases analysed, from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Further, the special issue also contributes to broaden the gender approach in adaptation to GEC by incorporating research sites in the Global North alongside sites from the Global South. This paper examines and compares the main approaches adopted (e.g. qualitative or mixed methods) and the methodological challenges that derive from intersectional perspectives. Finally, key messages for policy agendas and further research are drawn from the common reflection.

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The 21st century has been designated the Urban Century given that over fifty percent of the world's population is reported to be living in cities. Indigenous populations are not alien to this demographic trend. In Mexico, an underestimated 35 percent of the indigenous population lives in cities. Over the last decade, the global demographic transition towards urbanization coupled with city-based indigenous activism has drawn scholars to systematically study indigenous urban experiences as forms of cultural resilience and innovation. Yet, little attention has been paid to the intersection between indigenous populations and the political ecology of urbanization as a dynamic process. This dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the intersection between indigeneity and urbanization by taking a political ecology approach to study the relationship between the Yaqui people and the city of Hermosillo in Sonora, Mexico. The Yaqui people--Yoemem--locate their ancestral homeland along the Yaqui River, about 220 kilometers south of Hermosillo. In the last century, however, they established diasporic communities across the Greater Southwest, including in Hermosillo. This dissertation specifically addresses three overarching questions. First, it asks how urbanization plays a role within indigenous Yaqui struggles over resource governance in a context where people have little political and economic power. Second, it asks how indigenous communities have adapted the cultural practices of their ancestors to marginal urban environments and specifically how they deal with the environmental and legal challenges imposed by the process of urbanization. Finally, it asks how analytical attention to urban indigenous struggles and indigenous accounts of those struggles present a more nuanced history of the urbanization of nature. These research questions were addressed through a mixed-methods approach that integrated twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, comparative analysis of museum collections, and review of legal materials and documentary sources associated with indigenous rights and urban development at the municipal, state, and national levels. At its core, this dissertation integrates two related but yet-to-be-engaged theoretical discussions: anthropological critiques of the myth of the noble savage who belongs to nature, and political ecology deconstruction of the myth of the modern city that exists outside nature. Research findings indicate that situated urban indigenous experiences constitute an extension of indigenous territories into new areas. In articulating their indigenous identities the Yaquis of Hermosillo incorporate the city into their indigenous homeland, and in turn transform the political ecology of the city.